Touch Deprivation

Research shows that humans should engage in some form of physical contact at least eight times a day in order to maintain good mental health. Humans are a social species, so it makes sense. Touch deprivation is a real condition, look it up. It doesn't apply to me though, because I'm not human. I may look, sound, and act human, but I'm not. I can't be. I don't feel human, so I don't need touch like one.

This morning I woke up to a cough stuck in my throat. It hurt to breathe and my body felt stiff. I pulled myself out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. Bent over the sink, I immediately felt the cough hack its way out of my lungs. The force of the coughing reverberated throughout my whole body. When the cough finally subsided it left a distinct taste in my mouth. It was like a mix of iron, dirt, and freshly cut grass. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and looked down into the sink.

It's been harder to bend my joints lately. I'm not sure what it is. I'm too young to be having joint problems when I've always had a clean bill of physical health. Worse yet, when it rains they ache. They ache like they're going to disintegrate. I can't even bend them when it rains. I can't go to the doctor. If I go to the doctor they'll touch me. I'll get poked and prodded and prescribed pain meds and that will be the end of it. No, I can't tell anyone about this.

The wilderness is calling me. I hear it in the wind and I see it in my dreams. The wind whistles sweetly outside the window of my studio apartment. She's so kind, the wind. She caresses my skin so gently and pulls me towards an unknown. I don't know what she wants but her breath is more caring than any other I've felt; I trust her instinctively. I love her primally. I'll go anywhere she tells me to go.

There are twenty-three unopened voicemails in my inbox, and over thirty missed calls. I don't answer phone calls anymore, nor do I listen to voicemails. I feel nothing as I watch another call go to voicemail. My family has been trying to contact me all week, but I want to be left alone. I can't get out of bed to go to work either. My fridge is empty because I can't subject myself to suffering the ordeal of grocery shopping. I'm not hungry though, I haven't been hungry for a while. Physical hunger, I do not feel. I feel a different sort of hunger, I need a different sort of nourishment. The siren song of the wind calls me again. I need to go.

As I limp through the woods I wonder why the wind has brought me here. This forest feels special, it feels right. I run my hand over the bark of a tree and look up, the leaves in the canopy aren't touching. I read somewhere that this is called "crown shyness," I always thought that sounded nice. To be in the company of others who are near you but won't touch you. The pattern that the gaps make remind me of cell walls in the human body. A sudden pain grips my chest and works its way up my esophagus. Another cough. I stagger and stumble back to the edge of the forest, I know why the wind called me here. I'm the next to join the forest. I collapse at the treeline, hacking wood and leaves out of my lungs. My back, my spine it hurts. It's swelling. Something is sprouting, I can feel it. I am breaking free of my human shell. I am changing. It hurts. It shouldn't hurt but it hurts. Why does it hurt? I'm not human, it shouldn't hurt. I wish someone would hold my hand. I wish someone would touch me. It hurts.